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If it’s the one I’m thinking of that episode made me so frustrated about a segment of the population. They had to lie about what they were doing because there w

If it’s the one I’m thinking of that episode made me so frustrated about a segment of the population. They had to lie about what they were doing because there were people who objected to the fact this was being done to protect the environment and would refuse to sell to them essentially to stick it to the environmentalists. The degree to which not screwing up the environment has become partisan for some people is really quite depressing.

shalmanese 4y ago
Yup, that's the one. Had that exact same feeling of frustration which is why the story is still fresh in my memory 2 years later.
mikeyouse 4y ago
My neighbor, whose political affiliation you can guess, actively gives us shit for recycling. It is a free service where we are, and I don't bother recycling the low-value plastic crap, primarily thick dry cardboard, glass and metal, and this dude still pokes fun at it every time he sees the bin. Just the dumbest damn people.
- __alexs 4y ago
  Some plastics are worth something like 10x more than glass in the recycling market. I think PET is the big one.
  - skybrian 4y ago
    Interesting. Where could I read more about this?
- vxNsr 4y ago
  Probably because in most of the US recycling is fake and it all ends up in the landfill anyway, or the amount of energy spent recycling outweighs the savings. Recycling is something the oil companies came up with to whitewash their image, and justify single use plastics, it doesn’t work, has never worked and it’s hard to see how it would work. This is the real “Inconvenient Truth.” If you really wanna “do your part to fight climate change,” you’re better off trying to live like someone out of 1890 before plastics was a thing, and people repaired/patched 100x before even considering replacements. You’ll have less time for arguing with idiots like me online but you’ll be much happier and actually be making a positive contribution.
  - mikeyouse 4y ago
    > Probably because in most of the US recycling is fake and it all ends up in the landfill anyway, or the amount of energy spent recycling outweighs the savings. > Recycling is something the oil companies came up with to whitewash their image, and justify single use plastics, it doesn’t work, has never worked and it’s hard to see how it would work. No, it's because he's an idiot whose brain is turned to mush from obsessing about culture war politics. The plastic recycling history is vaguely interesting for some plastics and completely irrelevant for glass and metals which are profitably recycled due to the economics of recycling them vs. creating them from scratch. In any case, the local waste plant recycles what they can and then burns the rest for energy so I'll let them make the call on what's profitable to process.
    - hinkley 4y ago
      In the case of glass it’s also the physics. All fired silicon materials are more stable when they have been fired at least twice. If you make ceramics, you save all your failures to make grog, which is basically ceramic sand or dust. Mixed in with fresh clay it reduced the expansion ratio and the internal stresses. Bottles with recycled material are more sturdy than those without. I don’t know how the process of bringing a bottle plant online works, but if it doesn’t include either buying grog from a supplier or feeding all the glass from the test runs into a hopper I would be very surprised. I have never heard a physicist explain this phenomenon, but if you crush something it tends to break along the weakest points, so crushed silicon has selected out many of the weakest grains and left the strongest ones. Then either they continue to grow or they just increase the ratio of strong to weak.
  - cptskippy 4y ago
    The symbols we've come to associate with plastics being recyclable actually just indicate the material composition. And it isn't by accident that we assume that symbol means it's recyclable either. Plastics like PET and HDPE are recyclable but sorting recyclable materials from non-recyclable ones is costly which meant a lot of recycling does end up as waste. We need to start penalizing manufacturers and retailers for single-use plastics. Laws like those passed in Maine banned most single-use plastic bags and mandates that anyone offering them must also provide recycling a drop off bin. Consumers mostly do not have a choice about how their products are packaged so the onus must be shifted onto retailers and manufacturers who make those decisions.
- NullPrefix 4y ago
  There is no such thing as a free service
  - hinkley 4y ago
    There is when the city is getting paid for the recycled material. In fact some cities offset the price of trash service with the money from recycling. Which is part of the impetus to fine people for not separating. You’re costing the city money.
    - pxmpxm 4y ago
      From what i've read, aluminum is about the only thing that is remotely valuable, and can deposits tend take care of that. Paper and glass especially are EV negative, and composting a la NYC is yuppie feel good nonsense.
      - hinkley 4y ago
        Composting is bullshit until we’ve mandated that produce stickers be fully biodegradable. Nothing put me off city compost like finding microplastics everywhere in the pile.
- throw10920 4y ago
  Here's a strategy that I've found works decently with these people: frame it in terms of (1) being resourceful (2) being responsible and preserving resources for the next generation (especially their children, if they have them) (3) not being "lazy and wasteful" (you might not like that framing, but it kind of works better for that kind of personality) and (4) national sovereignty (the more wasteful we are with resources, the more we have to depend on other governments for them). There's also a few good ones for moving away from ICEs: (1) I'd rather make things out of oil/plastic than just burn it up (2) national sovereignty and (3) resilience in case of war or disaster. Relatedly, I don't think I've every heard an environmentalist use these points. Any idea what that is?
  - agentdrtran 4y ago
    they do all the time, it doesn't work. people might be dumb but they are not dumb enough to know when they're being pandered to. they have a cultural signifier and they like it that way.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
    The best argument for EVs is putting them on the passenger seat of a Tesla Model 3 Performance, and putting the hammer down. Stop arguing with abstract concepts, benefits for society, and dishonest framing (people are really allergic to anything they perceive as being lied to). Show the immediate, direct, tangible benefits they get.
    - throw10920 4y ago
      Wow, this is both a really good idea and a good concrete example of it. Adding it to my toolbox. Thanks!
    - chipsa 4y ago
      I don't argue in FB about the environmental benefits of EVs, but rather hype immediate benefits: faster on the 0-40 times than most cars (even beating some sports cars), less maintenance, and never having to hit the gas station. Just plug in at night.
  - 4y ago
- fouric 4y ago
  > Just the dumbest damn people. They might be less stubborn if you were less condescending and spent more time actually trying to come up with good arguments to convince them. pretty clear that being arrogant never changes anyone's mind. inclined to believe that you don't actually care about convincing, just judging
  - unethical_ban 4y ago
    You are correct, if convincing is the goal. Attempting to convince the unwilling becomes exhausting over time.
    - fouric 4y ago
      Funny, I've been able to convince some of my conservative friends and family to recycle and change their minds on some conservation issues. maybe, like I suggested, the problem is that you're doing it wrong
      - unethical_ban 4y ago
        I have convinced one or two to think differently, on one or two subjects, after them knowing me for long enough to not assume I'm some leather-chewing CNN puppet. I finally got my dad to say that "no one should die from lack of healthcare because they're poor" and that "the act of being a billionaire implies unethical behavior". But he doesn't think the government should do anything about any of it, all the Democrats are evil and corrupt, and Trump is the best president of the past 120 years. Another relative, after one of the recent shootings, said there was nothing we can do about gun violence. I immediately named off a few modest proposals that don't involve mass registration or confiscation, and he immediately said "yeah those don't sound bad". Both my parents were conservatives for a long time, but were not angry, bitter, finger-pointing people about it until they had a traumatic event happen, AND a black Democrat became president, AND they got access to high speed internet and Fox News in the same year - 2008. Now they watch four+ hours of Fox propaganda per day, my mother more because she goes onto bona-fide hate and misinformation sites and prints out articles on how Ukraine is the hub for US bioweapons labs and World Order money laundering because Ukraine is literally the most corrupt government in the world. With bylines of made up names, whose biographies are empty when you click the hyperlink. But that is more trustworthy than the Wall Street Journal, or the New York Times, or gasp NPR. I've had experience in these conversations. I know that the approach is to get them talking about what matters to them first, and find common ground. Believe me, I'm not "doing it wrong". Doing it, even doing it correctly, is exhausting, full stop.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  Anti-masking moved from a claim of personal autonomy to active aggression towards people wearing masks, and mask bans.
cupofpython 4y ago
- ars 4y ago
  The reality is that most environmentalists don't care about the environment, they just care about making people miserable. I joined some environmentalist forums because I cared only to realize how misanthropic most of them were, and they did not care at all about reality.
  - hinkley 4y ago
    This is one of my favorite things about permaculture. It’s turning gardeners into conservationists, not conservationists into gardeners. If you don’t already like plants it’s too involved (intellectually and sometimes physically) of a hobby/cause to get into it just so you can lambast people. The glaring exception to this is that we absolutely are all coming after your lawn, and that’s such a hot button issue for people.
    - cupofpython 4y ago
      are lawns really such a problem? I see an ecosystem next to my front door as a risk. Lawns are easily managed, they provide line of sight across my property to the street, it's hard for wild animals to nest next to where i, and my future children, need to walk every day. I really dont see it as a problem. on the flipside, the greater back half of my yard not near the house i encourage to be an ecosystem. If everyone on the block did so, then the entire middle of the block would be a continuous piece of nature. Front lawns create scattered pockets of nature at best and seem to cause a lot of friction. I think of the Geese all around the industrial park near me, and how going into and out of your office on the sidewalk can become a problem if theres a mother goose around who thinks youre threatening her family
      - hinkley 4y ago
        Some substantial fraction of all pesticide and fertilizer release into waterways comes from cities not farms. Also a huge part of the non agricultural water supply goes to lawns. So while I empathize with the people who say that asking residents to stop watering their lawns to conserve water, but we don't do that for farmers, that's still quite an impactful action from the perspective of the city's water supply. The farmer is filling up a tank or hopper with hundreds or thousands of pounds of chemicals that cost them a ton of money so they can't really afford to have it just sitting around. They know when they fertilize right before a rainstorm just how much money they lost. The feedback is pretty immediate. Some people would say this is sufficient to prevent problems, but we know that's not true. It discourages problems, but it doesn't prevent them. Meanwhile your neighbor has a $10 container they bought last year and they'll need a new one next year even if they didn't use it, so who cares if I fertilize and forget to turn off the sprinklers? Hardly any discouragement at all. It's very open loop.
codefreeordie 4y ago
Why do you suppose that sentiment is so strong?
- tantalor 4y ago
  Probably because any "skepticism" about climate change (no matter how reasonable) is basically taboo (cancelable offense) which triggers knee-jerk opposition in reactionary/contrarian types. Happens with other topics, like transgender treatment for kids.
  - toyg 4y ago
    Nah, it was already like that when "global warming" (as it was previously known in pop culture) was still being argued among scientists. Some people just hate change and being told how they should live.
  - kmacdough 4y ago
    It's also amplified by the humiliation many kids experience when struggling in school systems. Causes a general distaste for reason and science because, in a very real way, it hurt them as a child. Not actually science and reason itself, but people pushing it and claiming to represent it.
- moralestapia 4y ago
  You have a valid question and I'm also interested in this. It's always a good first step to get to understand the opposing view.
- ars 4y ago
  Because environmentalists have a truly terrible track record. They keep advocating for things that won't really help the environment - or actively hurt it. As long as those things pass some kind of "purity test". For example: Being against nuclear power. Plastic straw ban (the replacements are way worse for the environment). Banning natural gas in homes (using electricity for your stove, water heater and dryer has greater emissions). Plastic bags vs others types - study after study has shown this helps litter, but is worse in every other possible way. Recycling plastic rather than burning it. Burning it is better for the environment, but "sounds bad".
ip26 4y ago
As I recall it wasn't "to stick it to the environmentalists", it was simply preservationist thinking. They didn't want something they saw as scarce & useful destroyed, the same way you might prefer to sell your old laptop to someone who will appreciate it and re-use it vs someone who wants to melt it.
- thaeli 4y ago
  There was a lot of overlap between people with each of those opinions. My recollection is the same as yours, though - the motivation was more preservation and the idea that "the good stuff" was now a limited resource that could never be replaced.
tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
Part of the reason for this is that environmentalists optimize for the most visible (annoying) measures, not the most effective one. That goes so far as to ask people to sort recycling from trash 'to raise awareness' even when it all gets mixed together anyways. Straws and plastic bags in developed countries with working waste disposal systems are another example. Each time someone pulls a half-dissolved paper straw out of their drink, you've just made a person that is less willing to support environmental measures.

shalmanese 4y ago

Yup, that's the one. Had that exact same feeling of frustration which is why the story is still fresh in my memory 2 years later.

mikeyouse 4y ago

My neighbor, whose political affiliation you can guess, actively gives us shit for recycling. It is a free service where we are, and I don't bother recycling the low-value plastic crap, primarily thick dry cardboard, glass and metal, and this dude still pokes fun at it every time he sees the bin. Just the dumbest damn people.

__alexs 4y ago
Some plastics are worth something like 10x more than glass in the recycling market. I think PET is the big one.
- skybrian 4y ago
  Interesting. Where could I read more about this?
vxNsr 4y ago
Probably because in most of the US recycling is fake and it all ends up in the landfill anyway, or the amount of energy spent recycling outweighs the savings. Recycling is something the oil companies came up with to whitewash their image, and justify single use plastics, it doesn’t work, has never worked and it’s hard to see how it would work. This is the real “Inconvenient Truth.” If you really wanna “do your part to fight climate change,” you’re better off trying to live like someone out of 1890 before plastics was a thing, and people repaired/patched 100x before even considering replacements. You’ll have less time for arguing with idiots like me online but you’ll be much happier and actually be making a positive contribution.
- mikeyouse 4y ago
  > Probably because in most of the US recycling is fake and it all ends up in the landfill anyway, or the amount of energy spent recycling outweighs the savings. > Recycling is something the oil companies came up with to whitewash their image, and justify single use plastics, it doesn’t work, has never worked and it’s hard to see how it would work. No, it's because he's an idiot whose brain is turned to mush from obsessing about culture war politics. The plastic recycling history is vaguely interesting for some plastics and completely irrelevant for glass and metals which are profitably recycled due to the economics of recycling them vs. creating them from scratch. In any case, the local waste plant recycles what they can and then burns the rest for energy so I'll let them make the call on what's profitable to process.
  - hinkley 4y ago
    In the case of glass it’s also the physics. All fired silicon materials are more stable when they have been fired at least twice. If you make ceramics, you save all your failures to make grog, which is basically ceramic sand or dust. Mixed in with fresh clay it reduced the expansion ratio and the internal stresses. Bottles with recycled material are more sturdy than those without. I don’t know how the process of bringing a bottle plant online works, but if it doesn’t include either buying grog from a supplier or feeding all the glass from the test runs into a hopper I would be very surprised. I have never heard a physicist explain this phenomenon, but if you crush something it tends to break along the weakest points, so crushed silicon has selected out many of the weakest grains and left the strongest ones. Then either they continue to grow or they just increase the ratio of strong to weak.
- cptskippy 4y ago
  The symbols we've come to associate with plastics being recyclable actually just indicate the material composition. And it isn't by accident that we assume that symbol means it's recyclable either. Plastics like PET and HDPE are recyclable but sorting recyclable materials from non-recyclable ones is costly which meant a lot of recycling does end up as waste. We need to start penalizing manufacturers and retailers for single-use plastics. Laws like those passed in Maine banned most single-use plastic bags and mandates that anyone offering them must also provide recycling a drop off bin. Consumers mostly do not have a choice about how their products are packaged so the onus must be shifted onto retailers and manufacturers who make those decisions.
NullPrefix 4y ago
There is no such thing as a free service
- hinkley 4y ago
  There is when the city is getting paid for the recycled material. In fact some cities offset the price of trash service with the money from recycling. Which is part of the impetus to fine people for not separating. You’re costing the city money.
  - pxmpxm 4y ago
    From what i've read, aluminum is about the only thing that is remotely valuable, and can deposits tend take care of that. Paper and glass especially are EV negative, and composting a la NYC is yuppie feel good nonsense.
    - hinkley 4y ago
      Composting is bullshit until we’ve mandated that produce stickers be fully biodegradable. Nothing put me off city compost like finding microplastics everywhere in the pile.
throw10920 4y ago
Here's a strategy that I've found works decently with these people: frame it in terms of (1) being resourceful (2) being responsible and preserving resources for the next generation (especially their children, if they have them) (3) not being "lazy and wasteful" (you might not like that framing, but it kind of works better for that kind of personality) and (4) national sovereignty (the more wasteful we are with resources, the more we have to depend on other governments for them). There's also a few good ones for moving away from ICEs: (1) I'd rather make things out of oil/plastic than just burn it up (2) national sovereignty and (3) resilience in case of war or disaster. Relatedly, I don't think I've every heard an environmentalist use these points. Any idea what that is?
- agentdrtran 4y ago
  they do all the time, it doesn't work. people might be dumb but they are not dumb enough to know when they're being pandered to. they have a cultural signifier and they like it that way.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
  The best argument for EVs is putting them on the passenger seat of a Tesla Model 3 Performance, and putting the hammer down. Stop arguing with abstract concepts, benefits for society, and dishonest framing (people are really allergic to anything they perceive as being lied to). Show the immediate, direct, tangible benefits they get.
  - throw10920 4y ago
    Wow, this is both a really good idea and a good concrete example of it. Adding it to my toolbox. Thanks!
  - chipsa 4y ago
    I don't argue in FB about the environmental benefits of EVs, but rather hype immediate benefits: faster on the 0-40 times than most cars (even beating some sports cars), less maintenance, and never having to hit the gas station. Just plug in at night.
- 4y ago
fouric 4y ago
> Just the dumbest damn people. They might be less stubborn if you were less condescending and spent more time actually trying to come up with good arguments to convince them. pretty clear that being arrogant never changes anyone's mind. inclined to believe that you don't actually care about convincing, just judging
- unethical_ban 4y ago
  You are correct, if convincing is the goal. Attempting to convince the unwilling becomes exhausting over time.
  - fouric 4y ago
    Funny, I've been able to convince some of my conservative friends and family to recycle and change their minds on some conservation issues. maybe, like I suggested, the problem is that you're doing it wrong
    - unethical_ban 4y ago
      I have convinced one or two to think differently, on one or two subjects, after them knowing me for long enough to not assume I'm some leather-chewing CNN puppet. I finally got my dad to say that "no one should die from lack of healthcare because they're poor" and that "the act of being a billionaire implies unethical behavior". But he doesn't think the government should do anything about any of it, all the Democrats are evil and corrupt, and Trump is the best president of the past 120 years. Another relative, after one of the recent shootings, said there was nothing we can do about gun violence. I immediately named off a few modest proposals that don't involve mass registration or confiscation, and he immediately said "yeah those don't sound bad". Both my parents were conservatives for a long time, but were not angry, bitter, finger-pointing people about it until they had a traumatic event happen, AND a black Democrat became president, AND they got access to high speed internet and Fox News in the same year - 2008. Now they watch four+ hours of Fox propaganda per day, my mother more because she goes onto bona-fide hate and misinformation sites and prints out articles on how Ukraine is the hub for US bioweapons labs and World Order money laundering because Ukraine is literally the most corrupt government in the world. With bylines of made up names, whose biographies are empty when you click the hyperlink. But that is more trustworthy than the Wall Street Journal, or the New York Times, or gasp NPR. I've had experience in these conversations. I know that the approach is to get them talking about what matters to them first, and find common ground. Believe me, I'm not "doing it wrong". Doing it, even doing it correctly, is exhausting, full stop.
pessimizer 4y ago
Anti-masking moved from a claim of personal autonomy to active aggression towards people wearing masks, and mask bans.

cupofpython 4y ago

ars 4y ago
The reality is that most environmentalists don't care about the environment, they just care about making people miserable. I joined some environmentalist forums because I cared only to realize how misanthropic most of them were, and they did not care at all about reality.
- hinkley 4y ago
  This is one of my favorite things about permaculture. It’s turning gardeners into conservationists, not conservationists into gardeners. If you don’t already like plants it’s too involved (intellectually and sometimes physically) of a hobby/cause to get into it just so you can lambast people. The glaring exception to this is that we absolutely are all coming after your lawn, and that’s such a hot button issue for people.
  - cupofpython 4y ago
    are lawns really such a problem? I see an ecosystem next to my front door as a risk. Lawns are easily managed, they provide line of sight across my property to the street, it's hard for wild animals to nest next to where i, and my future children, need to walk every day. I really dont see it as a problem. on the flipside, the greater back half of my yard not near the house i encourage to be an ecosystem. If everyone on the block did so, then the entire middle of the block would be a continuous piece of nature. Front lawns create scattered pockets of nature at best and seem to cause a lot of friction. I think of the Geese all around the industrial park near me, and how going into and out of your office on the sidewalk can become a problem if theres a mother goose around who thinks youre threatening her family
    - hinkley 4y ago
      Some substantial fraction of all pesticide and fertilizer release into waterways comes from cities not farms. Also a huge part of the non agricultural water supply goes to lawns. So while I empathize with the people who say that asking residents to stop watering their lawns to conserve water, but we don't do that for farmers, that's still quite an impactful action from the perspective of the city's water supply. The farmer is filling up a tank or hopper with hundreds or thousands of pounds of chemicals that cost them a ton of money so they can't really afford to have it just sitting around. They know when they fertilize right before a rainstorm just how much money they lost. The feedback is pretty immediate. Some people would say this is sufficient to prevent problems, but we know that's not true. It discourages problems, but it doesn't prevent them. Meanwhile your neighbor has a $10 container they bought last year and they'll need a new one next year even if they didn't use it, so who cares if I fertilize and forget to turn off the sprinklers? Hardly any discouragement at all. It's very open loop.

codefreeordie 4y ago

Why do you suppose that sentiment is so strong?

tantalor 4y ago
Probably because any "skepticism" about climate change (no matter how reasonable) is basically taboo (cancelable offense) which triggers knee-jerk opposition in reactionary/contrarian types. Happens with other topics, like transgender treatment for kids.
- toyg 4y ago
  Nah, it was already like that when "global warming" (as it was previously known in pop culture) was still being argued among scientists. Some people just hate change and being told how they should live.
- kmacdough 4y ago
  It's also amplified by the humiliation many kids experience when struggling in school systems. Causes a general distaste for reason and science because, in a very real way, it hurt them as a child. Not actually science and reason itself, but people pushing it and claiming to represent it.
moralestapia 4y ago
You have a valid question and I'm also interested in this. It's always a good first step to get to understand the opposing view.
ars 4y ago
Because environmentalists have a truly terrible track record. They keep advocating for things that won't really help the environment - or actively hurt it. As long as those things pass some kind of "purity test". For example: Being against nuclear power. Plastic straw ban (the replacements are way worse for the environment). Banning natural gas in homes (using electricity for your stove, water heater and dryer has greater emissions). Plastic bags vs others types - study after study has shown this helps litter, but is worse in every other possible way. Recycling plastic rather than burning it. Burning it is better for the environment, but "sounds bad".

ip26 4y ago

As I recall it wasn't "to stick it to the environmentalists", it was simply preservationist thinking. They didn't want something they saw as scarce & useful destroyed, the same way you might prefer to sell your old laptop to someone who will appreciate it and re-use it vs someone who wants to melt it.

thaeli 4y ago
There was a lot of overlap between people with each of those opinions. My recollection is the same as yours, though - the motivation was more preservation and the idea that "the good stuff" was now a limited resource that could never be replaced.

tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago

Part of the reason for this is that environmentalists optimize for the most visible (annoying) measures, not the most effective one. That goes so far as to ask people to sort recycling from trash 'to raise awareness' even when it all gets mixed together anyways. Straws and plastic bags in developed countries with working waste disposal systems are another example. Each time someone pulls a half-dissolved paper straw out of their drink, you've just made a person that is less willing to support environmental measures.